


put the haul in holiday

by gsparkle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Caper Fic, Christmas, F/M, Museums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21941650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: People steal for a variety of reasons. Humanity is diverse, and motivations are equally as varied. You might steal out of desperation; out of greed or hunger or fear; to threaten or to blackmail or to get revenge.But the Black Widow only seems to steal for fun.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 17
Kudos: 81
Collections: be_compromised Secret Santa Exchange 2019





	put the haul in holiday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crazy4Orcas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazy4Orcas/gifts).



> time for my yearly dose of Christmas shenanigans! the prompt was _The Thomas Crowne Affair_ , which this isn't really... but is sort of? anyway, hope you enjoy this and your holiday season!
> 
> [title is from "All I want for Christmas is more, more, more," a song by Daffy Duck on the album that best encapsulates my childhood: _Have Yourself a Looney Tunes Christmas_. select lyrics: _"I hope Santa brings a real truck load, it won't all fit into his sleigh. This Christmas I want a real duck load, to put the haul in holiday-hey, hey, hey. It's better to give than receive, they say; I know you've heard that before. But take my advice, and that is it's nice to get more, more, MORE!"_ ]
> 
> permanent forever thank you to **orimarvale** <3

On December 5th, Clint gets a phone call. “I need you on a case,” says Maria Hill.

Clint sits up fast in bed, immediately 300% more aware than he’d been 30 seconds prior. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

This is Clint Barton, down on his luck private investigator and desperately bored. While he scrambles into yesterday’s clothes and mismatched socks, let’s quickly recap his career: once considered some sort of detective savant, Clint Barton was instrumental in bringing down the Tracksuit Mafia, a gang of Adidas-loving thugs who terrorized Bedford-Stuyvesant for years. Since then, however, he’s become something of a one-hit wonder. 

This isn't judgement, just context. Now, as Clint skids into the police station a solid five minutes ahead of his promised arrival, you understand why Sergeant Maria Hill says, “I need you to find some chickens,” and why Clint only takes one second’s hesitation to accept.

“So you found the chickens, then?” This is Kate, who would be Clint’s assistant if anyone ever hired him. As it is, she’s the only person with a key to his apartment and therefore, whether she wants to be or not, qualifies as Clint’s best friend.

Clint rolls his eyes and swallows about half his pint of beer. “Obviously not.” The case, though he hesitates to apply the word to the situation, is a simple one: a teen animal trainer from Michigan (“Squirrel Girl”; no other name given) was scheduled to appear on _The TODAY Show_ , but her chickens vanished thirty minutes before her call time. “Like, they can fly!” 

“Not really,” Kate puts in.

Clint ignores this. “What exactly am I supposed to do?” he goes on. He’d spoken to the security staff: nothing. Reviewed the security cameras: nothing. After an afternoon of investigation, all he has to show for it is a few ferret scratches and a few tips from the segment on how to achieve the perfect wavy curls this holiday season. “How am I supposed to find things that can fly?”

“They can’t,” Kate repeats. Cheerfully, she muses, “Someone probably just took them.”

“That really doesn’t help,” Clint tells her. “You’re a terrible assistant.”

“I’d be better,” Kate says, patting his hand, “If you paid me.”

Unable to stop thinking about missing chickens and unpaid apprentices, Clint goes to the Met. It’s an inconvenient place to think, since he lives in Bed-Stuy and has to ride the C train for like an hour to get there, but there’s no white noise like museum white noise, no quiet like the not-quite-quiet of distant feet on marble floors. This is an old habit: the security guards and docents all know him by name, and he navigates the exhibits instinctively, no longer needing the signs to know which way to go. Today it’s the hall of Greek and Roman art, where the weak December sun filters through the arched glass ceiling. He winds between columns, studying this bust and that statue until he finds one he wants to spend a little time with. _Hermes_ , the placard says. There’s a heart carved above one eye.

“He was stolen once, you know.” A second ago, he was alone in the hall; now there’s a woman at his shoulder, her footsteps silent in the echoing hall. A year Clint’s known her, and he still doesn’t know how she does it. Actually, he doesn't know a lot about her, besides that she's brilliant, clever, deviously funny, and here wandering the halls of the Met as often as he is. This is Natasha, maybe 50% of the reason that Clint comes all the way up to Midtown over and over and over again. 

"Oh?" He turns, taking in her carefully curated pile of red hair, her sharp, bottle-green eyes. _Maybe 75 percent_ , he admits to himself. "By you?"

Natasha has a special kind of half-grin that feels like a full laugh and always seems to steal onto her face without her meaning it to. "Of course." She walks a slow circle around the statue. "Just walked right up and grabbed him one day. Security wasn't so tight back in the 80s." 

"You would've been, what, three?" Clint asks. In response, he gets a shrug and a smirk. "Sure. And then, after all that, you just returned it?"

"Well, what would I need a bust of Hermes for?" She's got this lovely thick voice, smoke-streaked and full of held-back laughter. "Besides, the fun would be in proving that I _could_ do it. Stealing would only be fun if you give it back once you're done."

“That would make you the nicest criminal in the world, I guess,” Clint tells her. “I don’t really think that’s how it works in real life.”

“Well, it should,” Natasha declares, finally circling back to offer Clint her arm, and as he does whenever possible, Clint agrees and takes it.

“I have another case for you,” Maria says. It’s December 7th.

“Oh?” Clint says, caution warring with eagerness. “Is it better or worse than the chickens?”

Maria says, “Hm,” which isn’t promising, and then she goes on: “There’s this professor who lives in the Village whose name, I shit you not, is Doctor Strange…”

This is how Clint finds himself in the musty brownstone of Doctor Stephen Strange, who appears to have a PhD in being fucking _weird_ in addition to his regular MD. “I own twenty-four blackbirds and four are missing,” he says upon Clint’s arrival, as if this is a normal way to greet someone.

“You… _count_ your birds?” Clint chokes. “Regularly?” 

Dr. Strange looks down his nose at Clint. “Of course,” he says, the _doesn’t everyone?_ hanging implied off the end of his words. “When one owns four and twenty blackbirds, one must count them daily.”

“Uh,” says Clint. “Definitely.” This appears to satisfy the doctor, who swoops away to show Clint to the birdcages-- _swoops_ being the operative word because, oh yeah, he’s also wearing a deep red, velvet cape. 

[ _weirdest case ever_ ] Clint quickly texts Kate, shoving his phone into his pocket as the birdcages come into view. Tall and ornate, made of black wrought iron, they brush the high ceiling of the wood-paneled parlor. Blackbirds, Clint learns immediately and unpleasantly, are loud, with a crackling call that grates against his hearing aids. “The back door is there,” Dr. Strange says, evidently unbothered by the cacophony. “I came back from class this afternoon and found it ajar.” _Ajar,_ Clint mouths to himself as Dr. Strange pats his breast pocket, then other apparent hiding spaces in his cape. “Have you seen my glasses?”

“You’re, uh. You’re wearing them,” Clint points out, though the doctor appears not to hear him. Sighing, Clint inspects the cage doors, which are secured only by a simple latch, then the back door, which doesn’t bear signs of forced entry. To the yelling birds, he muses, “Who would want to steal _one_ of you, though, let alone four? Like, are you holding state secrets?” He looks defeatedly to the doctor. “Can they do that? Listen, or whatever? Repeat things they’ve heard?”

“Probably not,” says Dr. Strange, but he seems to be actually considering this possibility. “Do you think the NSA--” he begins, but Clint rushes to excuse himself before he can be drawn into any further lunacy.

“You should tell Maria you’re not taking any more cases,” Kate tells Clint, the phone speaker amplifying her exasperation. 

“ _You_ tell her,” Clint says, chewing on the end of his pencil. “I’m afraid of her.” 

She’s right, though; neither the chickens nor the blackbirds have turned up, and it’s December 8th, and he still has other important things to do, like buy Kate the dumbest Christmas gift he can find, and put up the Christmas lights before his tenants do it all wrong. (Last year he let Harold in 4B take charge of the decoration process, but he put up all white lights and nobody knew how to politely contradict him, so they spent the whole holiday season the quiet embarrassment of Tomkins Street. Plus, he blew out Clint’s best surge protector.) 

Clint sighs and adds another thing to his shopping list. “If she calls me tomorrow,” he decides, “I’m saying I’m busy.”

“I’m surprised you picked up the phone,” Maria says. It’s December 9th. 

“But I so enjoy our chats,” Clint says, wishing desperately that he’d been in the shower when she’d called. Even on the phone, Maria Hill is terrifying, and he’s also becoming less and less convinced that he even wants to do this job anymore. Maybe being a successful private detective simply isn’t in the cards for him. Maybe it’s time for him to gracefully fade into mediocrity and just get some other job (though what, exactly, that job would be is unclear). 

“Are you listening, Barton?” Hill’s voice snips into the fabricated future forming in his mind.

He isn’t. “Of course,” Clint lies.

“So then I’ll see you at Tiffany’s in 30 minutes?” 

“Yeah--wait, what?” But the line’s dead. Clint looks at the phone for a minute, then another. Tiffany’s? When did Tiffany’s come into the conversation? Inconveniently, his curiosity is piqued. He’d just been ready to quit--but then, it’s almost _guaranteed_ that Tiffany’s New York isn’t missing any birds, right? Kate would probably disagree, but Clint, ever the optimist, thinks this could be something of a step up.

So he goes, fighting down the hopeful spirit rising in his chest like the smell of roasting chestnuts over the Manhattan streets. There’s a clutch of cops milling around the entrance, which at least confirms that something more than pigeons are missing. Nothing seems particularly amiss, even past the caution tape that feels somewhat unnecessary. “What I really don’t get,” the store manager is telling Maria as Clint sidles up, “is why they only took a handful of items.”

“Could you define ‘a handful’?” Maria asks in what Clint easily identifies as her _I’m three seconds from pencil-stabbing you in the eye_ voice.

“Well, I mean,” the manager says in a not-very-humblebrag, “we’re in the business of luxury. The light fixtures alone are worth thousands of dollars! Our displays are insured in the millions, our vault is full of diamonds, and yet only a few rings were stolen?” Even the way he shakes his head is pompous. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Clint’s detective brain, slow from having only had one cup of coffee thus far, begins to belatedly whir to life. “How many rings?” he calls over Maria’s shoulder, interrupting her next question. Three missing chickens, four missing blackbirds, and now-- _now_ \--“Seriously, how many?”

“Well,” says the manager, looking displeased at the interruption, “Like I was saying, just five plain rings. Not even the engagement rings,” he says, almost disappointed. “Just plain--”

“Yes,” Clint presses, “but what _kind_ of rings?” 

“ _Barton_ ,” Maria hisses.

“Just answer!” Clint insists. The manager looks at Maria, who rolls her eyes but reluctantly nods. 

“Well, wedding bands, I guess,” he says, bewildered. “Just plain gold bands.” 

“Shit,” Clint says, his hands clawing his hair out of its already messy shape. “Fuck _._ ”

“Shit fuck _what_?” asks Maria (they both ignore the manager drawing back in delicate shock at their language).

“This is the work,” Clint declares, “of the Black Widow,” and he’s too busy rushing out the store to steal a ride to the station to hear her groan in response.

People steal for a variety of reasons. Humanity is diverse, and motivations are equally as varied. You might steal out of desperation; out of greed or hunger or fear; to threaten or to blackmail or to get revenge. But the Black Widow only seems to steal for fun.

Here’s an example: seven years ago, Audrey Hepburn’s iconic black dress and pearls vanished from the New York Museum of Costuming, prompting a frantic search that only ended when an unsuspecting television starlet showed up wearing the ensemble to promote her new show. When interrogated, the actress said she’d hired a new stylist, a Natalia Roman, who’d said she’d had just the right outfit for the event.

Another example: five years ago, the entirety of Madame Tussaud’s phalanx of uncanny wax figures almost melted to fake-death when they were found arranged around the lake in Central Park one August day. Natalie Rushman, a newly hired events planner, was meant to be overseeing their transport to a private exhibition that night, but she’d vanished.

Here’s the story that you really need to know, though: three years ago, just before Christmas, the New York City Christmas Tree was--well, not _stolen_ , but temporarily misplaced. New York, of course, is the city that never sleeps, but enough of it did for the Black Widow to spirit the tree out of Rockefeller Plaza and replace it with a terrifyingly oversized inflatable dancing air tube man--in Christmas colors, of course. Naturally, the city was in an uproar; perhaps that’s why the police non-emergency number received an anonymous tip about a giant tree propped against the playground fence at PS 6. Police offered a reward to whoever called in the tip, but nobody ever came forward.

Despite this--for many, _because_ of this--New Yorkers collectively love the Black Widow and claim her as a sort of hometown hero. Her thefts are usually considered harmless and in good fun, and in most recent years, she’s stuck to holidays as the targets for her pranks. Many fondly remember what has come to be called the Arbor Day Spectacle, or the thing with the leprechauns, or the time when she managed to scam nearly every boss in the city into believing that election day was actually the paid holiday it should be.

In short, the Black Widow is an icon, and evidently, is up to her old tricks.

“You can _not_ be serious,” Maria insists for maybe the third time since they’ve been back at the station. “For one thing, the twelve days of Christmas begin the day _after_ Christmas.” 

Clint barely looks up from the thick stack of police reports filed in the last week. “You and I are two of the few people who actually know this,” he says. “Also, that’s probably part of the joke. Partridge, partridge, c’mon, that would’ve been, what, the first? Ah--here!” He recites: “‘Mrs. May Parker reports that her family’s prized partridge brooch was stolen during a Christmas party at her home on December 1st. it was’--Jesus, seriously, get this--‘it was stored in a safe hidden behind a painting of a bowl of pears.’ I mean--” 

“Anyone could have done that,” Maria points out. 

Clint digs through another pile of reports, then waves one of them in the air, upsetting the pile. “Then how do you explain the theft of Whitney Frost’s turtledove earrings during the opera on December 3rd?”

“Someone was saving her from bad taste?” Maria suggests. “Or--here’s a completely wild hypothesis--maybe these are entirely separate incidences, seeing as how New York has about eight million people and many of them commit crimes?”

“Please,” Clint scoffs. “That’s just what the Back Widow _wants_ you to think.”

Maria releases a long-suffering sigh. “I’m not going to dissuade you from this, I see,” she says, not that Clint’s listening. In fact, he doesn’t even notice when the conference room door swings shut behind her.

“I can’t _believe_ I ended up on a Black Widow case!” To say that he can barely contain his excitement would be inaccurate: he _can’t_ contain it. Clint paces between sarcophagi, nearly colliding with stanchions several times. Other museum patrons give him a wide berth.

“Just because someone stole some gold rings doesn’t mean there’s a themed heist being played out, ” Natasha says, amused. Today she plays with the end of her braid, which hangs like a red ribbon across her green sweater.

“It’s not just the rings!” Clint insists. “I went back and talked to Squirrel Girl, and she said the missing chickens were ornamental Faverolle chickens.”

Natasha raises one skeptical eyebrow. “Which are from France, I presume?”

“Yes! And I talked to Dr. Strange again--for like an _hour_ , that man can _not_ go three words without mentioning his sabbatical in India, my _god_ \--”

“The point, Clint?”

Clint flushes. “Right. Anyway, once I finally got him to talk about blackbirds, he went off on the nursery rhymes for a while, but then--get this--he told me that people used to call blackbirds _colly_ birds!”

He pauses, waiting for Natasha to get the punchline and join him in his excitement. “The song says _calling_ birds,” she points out instead.

“Well, yeah,” Clint admits, digging out his phone. “But Wikipedia says that _colly_ used to mean, like, _coal-black_! Like blackbirds!”

He breaks off, distracted by Natasha biting her lip to unsuccessfully hide a smile. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” she says, something mischievous playing under her tone. “What gets stolen next, then?”

“That’s the problem,” Clint groans, pacing once again. _How_ is he supposed pinpoint where she’s going to steal six geese from? For one thing, geese are everywhere; for another, for them to be _stolen_ , they have to be somewhere they’d be missed. And what if she veers off course and goes figurative? “I mean, where do I even start? What if it’s, like, I don’t know, six hockey players with goose eggs on their foreheads?”

The look Natasha cuts his way is incredulous. “It’s probably not that,” she suggests.

“Maybe!” Clint insists.

“Kidnapping is a lot of work,” Natasha helpfully points out.

“And not fun,” Clint agrees, deflating. He sinks onto a bench and curls his hands into his sandy hair. After a moment, Natasha settles next to him, her knees angled towards his. “I just--” Clint sighs. It’s not that he hates the Black Widow. Honestly, he finds her work impressive, the scope and scale of what she pulls off. And if he’s being _really_ honest, he can admit that he admires her playfulness, her skill, her legacy. Would he be a tongue-tied mess if he ever met her? Absolutely. Wouldn’t everyone?

“So you have a crush on the Black Widow,” Natasha summarizes at the end of this jumbled mess of words, looking over for confirmation. There’s a new note in her voice, one he can’t quite identify.

“No, I--” _No, I have a crush on you_. “No,” Clint says. “I just really want to solve this case. Like, if I unmask the Black Widow, people will stop thinking I’m a one-hit wonder and actually start hiring me again.” Then he wouldn’t have to figure out what other jobs a minimally successful private detective is qualified to hold. Then he wouldn’t have to stop coming to the Met with Natasha.

“I wish you luck, then,” she tells him, and he’s too distracted by her hand on his arm to parse the enigmatic expression on her face.

It turns out the simplest answer, unfortunately, is the right one. 

“Six geese are missing from Central Park,” Maria reports to Clint.

There are, by Clint’s conservative estimate, about a thousand geese who live in Central Park. “And you know this… how?”

“We track them, of course,” says Sam Wilson, the groundskeeper and head bird supervisor when they arrive at the park conservation center. Maria, always cranky and today extra disgruntled, harrumphs. Sam goes on, “Tracking the migratory patterns of our birds helps us make sure we’re keeping the Park full of the resources they need. Canadian geese thrive _because_ of the habitats we create, so it’s _critical_ \--”

“Okay, listen,” Maria says through gritted teeth, pulling Clint away from where Sam Wilson continues to wax rhapsodic about Canadian geese. She takes a deep, bracing breath before managing to admit, “It appears you were… Ugh, okay. You were right about the Black Widow, I guess.” She puts her hands on her hips and glares across the lake. “I hate being wrong. Is this what is being you feels like?”

Clint flashes her an oversized grin. “Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear anything you said after _you were right_.”

“Hilarious,” she scowls, as if she didn’t start it. Cops, honestly. No sense of humor. “Do you have any ideas, then, O Great and Learned Detective?”

He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it and thinks, running through the twelve days of Christmas again. The thing about Manhattan is that there isn’t a lot of green space, and while it’s surrounded by water, there’s not a lot within it. If the Black Widow needs seven swans, assuming she doesn’t want to go all the way out to Long Island to get them, then--

“Hey, Wilson,” Clint calls, cutting off the transition to how migration patterns directly correlate to climate change. “I don’t suppose your office also tracks swans?”

The groundskeeper beams, delighted at the prospect of a discussing yet another bird. “As a matter of fact,” he says, kicking off a whole new lecture, “we do!”

All in all, Clint feels pretty good about that one. _Take that, Black Widow!_ he thinks as Maria deflects bird facts from Sam Wilson while setting up a plainclothes police perimeter around the swan habitats in Central Park. And he keeps feeling great until it’s 5pm on Friday the 13th and his phone rings. 

“HYDRA Ballet is missing seven papier-mâché swans,” Maria says, and if Clint didn’t know better, he’d say she’s laughing. “They'll have to cancel their opening night for _Swan Lake_. On the other hand, all the swans at Central Park are accounted for, so that’s something.”

“Well, at least Sam Wilson is happy,” Clint grumbles, hanging up on her laughter. 

Eight doesn’t go much better. Clint considers commonplace dairy situations, ice cream and gelato vendors, bodegas. When none of these work for Maria, he branches out: maybe NYU has a secret dairy farm to provide fresh milk for their ice cream? But in the end, Maria isn’t laughing when she calls to tell him that a Dutch woodcutting that dates back to the foundation of New York is missing from City Hall. “Got any ideas on what’s next?” she asks.

“No,” Clint confesses after a long moment.

“Me neither,” sighs Maria, and even the phone sounds disappointed as it hangs up.

When Clint Barton is in a funk, he goes to the Met to think. 

“I just don’t think I’m a very good detective,” he tells Natasha as they sit in the new exhibit about Impressionism. Gesturing broadly, he goes on, “I mean, these guys had talent coming out of their ears; meanwhile, I can barely match my socks.”

“You have talents,” Natasha says, stepping closer to a series of paintings by Degas. “You’ve got a great eye for art, you’re smart, you’re a good listener.” For one laser-cut second, her eyes flick to his, then back to the painting. “You’re cute.” 

Clint blinks, feeling the tips of his ears go hot. “Being cute isn’t a talent,” he finally manages to choke out, but weakly: even though her attention is on the painting in front of them, she’s still standing very close to him. He can smell the subtle trace of almond in her cherry shampoo, and when she turns to him with a third of a conspiratorial smile, her eyes seem even greener and brighter than usual. He looks away, clears his throat. “Anyway! What drew you to Degas today?”

The quirk of Natasha’s lips says she’s aware she’s being deflected. “I heard that HYDRA had to put their show on hold,” she says, shrugging. “Put me in the mood to look at some ballerinas, I guess.”

“Hmm,” Clint says. Clinically, he reviews the mental footage of all the time he’s spent with Natasha: the way she glides through the museum like the most graceful ghost, the deliberate sweep of her arm when she points out a brushstroke, the precision and focus she brings to every one of their conversations. “Natasha,” he says slowly, a veil lifting from one of her many mysteries that’s been vaguely teasing him for months. “Are you a dancer?”

This earns him a sly glance over her shoulder. “And you say you’re a bad detective,” she teases, although Clint can’t count it as much of a victory when he’s known her for more than a calendar year and only just figured it out. “Actually, I used to dance for HYDRA, once upon a time.”

Clint reads the brittleness that slips into her posture. “Not a fan?” he guesses.

Natasha wrinkles her nose. When she shakes her head, a little of her topknot comes loose. “Not so much,” she hedges. “Alexander Pierce and I had--a difference in opinion. He thinks ballet is just a means to an end; money, fame, you know.” She waves at the Degas. “This is what ballet should be about,” she says, indicating the pale blues of the tutus and the soft light from the window, the coordinated movements of the girls in rehearsal. “It’s about the skill, it’s about the artistry, it’s about the craft.” She looks directly into his eyes, and he gets the sense that this is the center of her, what she values most. “It’s about doing things right, because there’s nothing more beautiful than something done perfectly.” 

_Done perfectly_ , Clint repeats to himself. Under the fuzzy museum lights, Natasha is fierce, passionate, perfectly clear, and Clint’s heart loops double time around his sternum. “Do you want to go out with me tomorrow night?” he blurts, cheeks flaming. Natasha quirks an eyebrow and he rushes on, “I mean, the Black Widow’s probably going to steal something else, so I’m going to need a drink.”

There’s a moment where Natasha bites her lip and Clint regrets every word he’s ever said in her presence; but then she says, “I’ll give you my number,” and smiles, and he’s able to breathe again.

It feels like déjà vu when Maria calls not 12 hours later. “Clint, I’m sorry, but--” She hesitates. “The Met’s been hit.”

Clint doesn’t even answer, just hangs up and flags down the first taxi he sees. By the time he gets there, the entire second floor has been closed off, though Scott, one of the security guards, waves him through. “It’s a brand new installation,” Scott laments, walking Clint over to the scene of the crime. “How did anyone even have time to plan this?”

He doesn’t claim to have the best brain, or the most clever mind, but Clint knows basic math, and he knows when things don’t add up. Déjà vu strikes again as they enter the exact same gallery Clint and Natasha had visited the day before, and again as he catches Maria standing in the exact place they’d stood, with one glaring absence: the Degas. Now that he’s not distracted by Natasha’s smile and hair and blazing spirit, he looks at the placard. _Ballet Rehearsal, Edgard Degas. 1873._ The sticky note stuck to the back of his phone reminds him that today is scheduled for nine ladies dancing to be stolen. _Fuck_. Unable to remember how many ballerinas were pictured, he scans Wikipedia. Nine. _Double fuck._

“We have absolutely no idea how this happened,” Maria tells him as they head to the security office to review tapes. _Something done perfectly_ , Clint’s brain supplies; he shoves it away. “Security is baffled.”

“I was literally here yesterday,” Clint says, still looking over his shoulder as if he’ll see himself and Natasha there, standing close together under the hushed lights. “Like, I saw the painting. Here.” He scrolls through the security footage to the previous afternoon. “See?”

“Who is _this_?” Maria asks, her fingertips tapping the screen just under Natasha’s head. “She’s hot.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Clint says, not really listening. On the video, Natasha’s line of sight sweeps across the camera, making contact for only a second. He thinks about Degas, about talent. He thinks about ballet. He thinks about artistry, and about craft, and, for a long time, about things done perfectly.

He’s not going to bring it up, he’s not, he’s _not_ , he’s-- “That Degas we talked about yesterday?” Natasha looks up from her drink, eyebrows raised. “She stole it. The Black Widow, I mean.”

“That’s--” Within the span of one second, a few things happen: Natasha’s martini glass slips the tiniest bit, her smile loses an eighth of its wattage, and Clint gets all the confirmation that he needs. “That’s unfortunate,” she recovers, her smile returning to full brightness. “Do the police have any leads?”

Natasha-- _Natasha_ \--is the Black Widow, and what’s wild is that this fact doesn’t make him like her any less. Someone is conducting a strange and dangerous science experiment in the laboratory of Clint’s chest: things are bubbling, expanding, overflowing, exploding into the realization that he might actually like her… _more_? 

But that would be ridiculous. She’s a _criminal_. Natasha might not even be her real name. “Mm,” Clint hedges, realizing he’s been silent for too long. “Nothing concrete yet. Mainly we’re just trying to get ahead of the game at this point.”

“Probably a good idea,” Natasha muses, flagging down the bartender for another drink. “The Black Widow is wily.”

“She sure is,” Clint agrees tightly. He can safely say he’s never been in this position on a date, which is maybe why he asks, “Hey, just, y’know, spitballing: if you were going to steal something for ten lords a-leaping, what would you steal?” 

Natasha’s eyes go deep emerald; her smirk intoxicating in the dim of the bar. “There’s a photo in Police Commissioner Fury’s office from his days as a track star in college,” she says, her voice thick and smoky like she’s telling a ghost story. “Hangs behind his desk. Perfect shot of ten expert hurdlers.” She shrugs, and Clint doesn’t think about how she knows this, what business she has in the office of Police Commissioner Fury, why she has this answer already on the tip on her tongue. 

What Clint says is, “I don’t suppose you’d want to go out again with me again?” 

“I’m busy tomorrow night,” Natasha says blithely, “but how about the 19th?”

It’s not a surprise, exactly, when Commissioner Fury’s office reports that a treasured photo has been stolen from his office. No specific details are shared with the press, but Maria texts Clint that the photo’s description fits the bill for the Black Widow’s next scheduled theft. Anyone with knowledge of the Black Widow or the photo’s whereabouts is requested to contact the police office. 

Clint thinks for a while, a long while. Then he picks up his phone and dials.

“I sort of thought I wouldn’t see you here again,” Natasha says. She’s wary, her eyes darting to the corners of the gallery--the Sculpture Court, this time, to avoid the crowds of people still exclaiming over the missing Degas upstairs. 

_Why did you come if you thought I was going to rat you out?_ Clint wonders, tracking the suspicion in the corners of her gaze. Aloud, he says, “I still like art, after all.”

A small frown forms over the bridge of her nose. “But you work with the cops,” she reminds him.

“What does that have to do with art?” Clint asks with an exaggerated shrug. “Nothing on the books that says I can’t work with the cops and still enjoy statues of mythical heroes.”

“You _know_ that’s not what I mean,” Natasha mutters, all but stamping her foot. “Now that you--I mean--”

“Look,” Clint says, reaching one cautious hand towards Natasha’s hunched shoulder. “I like _art_ a lot. It doesn’t matter to me if the _art_ is, uh, stolen, or has a complicated history, or--or even still has some sort of ongoing… situation… thing.” He’s lost his way somehow. “Listen, what I’m _trying_ to say is that I, too, like things done perfectly--” he pauses here to hopefully make it clear that what he means is _her_ \-- “and I’d like to know if the, uh, _art_ would like to go ice skating this afternoon?” The wrinkle of Natasha’s nose indicates that she’s fighting back a smile. “Unless the art isn’t interested?”

“The art, I happen to know, is free all afternoon,” Natasha tells him, and tucks her hand into the corner of his arm.

“I guess you’ve given up,” says Maria on December 21st. 

“Well…” He sort of has. “Yeah.” 

Does it suck that his reputation is in the toilet? Yes. And will he ever get hired again? No. But, come on, how was he supposed to predict today’s very public theft of the New York Symphony’s entire set of piccolos? 

Granted, he’s in the completely unique position of being able to ask the Black Widow basically anything he wants; but since he knows who she is and hasn’t done anything about it, the need for plausible deniability seems real. Might that be a legitimate excuse for why the questions he _actually_ asked were things like _race you to the other end of the rink?_ and _is it too cold to get ice cream?_ And why even now he’s way busier thinking about other questions, like would she like to meet his dog, and how many marshmallows does she like in her hot chocolate, and also if she maybe wants to kiss him?

It’s a hopeless situation. He’s the laughingstock of the New York private investigators community. He’ll never solve a case again. Besides, where in New York is she going to find twelve drums, now that she’s exhausted the New York Symphony? As he learned with the mess at Central Park conservation center, the Black Widow never hits the same place twice. In theory, Broadway would be a target, but none of the shows currently running feature that many drums. So what else embodies enough nuisance, enough spectacle, and enough _New York-ness_ to get her attention? 

He walks his dog and thinks. _Twelve drums of crude oil?_

He lays on his bed and thinks. _Twelve drum sets from nightclubs around the city?_

He goes to the gym and orders a pizza and thinks and thinks and thinks and--

Hiding in this dark, cold room for hours is… well, it’s not the best plan Clint’s ever come up with. He’s cramped, cold, cranky; his phone battery is mostly drained, and he wishes he’d brought a book, or a warmer coat, or at least a charger. Most of all, he wishes he was asleep at home. The longer he’s here, the more he doubts himself, second and third and fourth guessing the logic he’s used to get here.

 _One more hour_ , he tries to convince himself, refusing to look at the tortured slowness of his watch. _One more minute_ , he adjusts, appeasing the growl in his stomach. _Okay, one more sec--_

While he argues with himself, the door swishes slowly open on greased hinges. Now Clint does look at his watch, and finds that it’s well past midnight. _December 23rd_ , he thinks. The moment of truth upon him, Clint hesitates, then peeks out from behind a crate and almost swallows his tongue.

He’s--he’s _right_. There, illuminated by the light of a single neon green glow stick, is Natasha. Her ponytail spills over her shoulder, bright against her black turtleneck and puffer vest, and she’s got some sort of utility belt slung around her waist. She looks, well--is tactical-hot a thing? And, also, not to harp on it, but--he’s _right._

It’s enough of a shock that he completely forgets to actually confront her; in fact, he’s still standing behind the crate, privately carrying out a miniature victory dance, when Natasha walks directly into him. “ _Clint?_ ” In the muted green light, her eyes are huge with genuine surprise and her voice spikes an octave. “I--er--” She flushes, flustered. “How did you find me?”

Clint waves to a bass drum in its protective case. “I only figured it out like four hours ago,” he admits. “I saw a commercial and realized that the Christmas Eve parade is exactly the kind of New York spectacle you like to interrupt. Basically--” He hesitates, smiles a little. “Basically, I just tried to think like you.” 

A sort of grudging respect swipes across Natasha’s face. “Does this mean you’re arresting me, then?” she asks, peering into the dark corners of the warehouse. “I assume the place is surrounded.”

Clint scoffs. “ _Arrest_ the Black Widow? Not a chance.” Natasha’s face undergoes a series of expressions--caution, then amusement, then appreciation--but it lands in an arrangement Clint’s never seen before, something faintly, excitingly predatory that makes the bottom of his stomach drop out. “I’m not about to be the person who brings down an _icon_. Can you imagine?”

“I--you--” She shakes her head and her eyes sweep across his face, sizzling and electric. “Nobody’s ever caught me before.” She steps a little closer and looks up through her dark eyelashes. “ _Ever_.” Her hands move as if to curl into the lapels of his jacket, then pause. “So if you’re not here to arrest me, then why _are_ you here?”

“Well, first of all,” Clint says, letting a single sliver of pride sneak into his voice, “I still needed to know I was right. I can only handle being wrong but so many times, you know.”

“And second?” She’s so close now that Clint is hyper-aware of her proximity, the warmth of her outline against his. In the cold, tiny puffs of air accompany every word that leaves her lips.

He means to say something clever, but what he does instead is lean in and slide his hands around her waist. Trying not to lose his nerve, Clint fumbles, “Uh, second,” but the rest is lost when Natasha rises to her toes and kisses him, tasting like peppermint and the winter cold outside. She tangles her fingers in his hair and Clint can’t help but kiss her back, never mind the dark and the cold and the soon-to-be-stolen drums. For this one, two, three minutes, the only thing that matters is the way they hold each other, creating brightness in the gloom.

“But you really do have to give the stuff back,” Clint says at last, out of breath and reluctant to disentangle his arms from hers. “I mean, not that I have any authority, and not that I’m going to tell the cops on you, but, y’know.” He shrugs. “It’s Christmas.”

“Obviously.” Natasha rolls her eyes. “That was always the plan.”

Clint blinks. “It was?”

“Uh, yeah.” This time, he gets a raised eyebrow of disbelief. “Like I’m going to make myself responsible for thirteen total birds for any longer than absolutely necessary.”

A plan begins to take shape in the back of Clint’s brain. “In that case,” he says slowly, “Can I co-opt the end of your heist?”

He’s stood on the steps of City Hall a million times, usually holding a cup of disgusting police bullpen coffee, but never with a sea of cameras flashing and reporters yelling in his general direction.

“As you may know,” Maria says into the microphone, looking significantly more confident than Clint feels, “we’ve spent the past month working to recover property stolen along the theme of the twelve days of Christmas. I’m happy to share with you all today that, in collaboration with a private detective, we have an update on the situation.” The swarm on the steps buzzes, but Maria waits them out. “In addition to our usual resources, we employed the help of Clint Barton, a local private investigator,” Maria says, waving Clint over to the microphone and causing the cameras and reporters to clamor exclusively in his direction. He’s suddenly grateful that he’s pulled his nice wool coat on for this instead of his usual beat up leather jacket. “Keep it short,” she mutters, stepping back.

“Uh, hi,” Clint says into the mic, wishing he, like Maria, had thought to wear sunglasses to shield himself from the flashing cameras. “I’m, uh, Clint Barton, private investigator.”

“Was it the Black Widow?” someone yells.

“So, uh,” Clint falters, blinking and shell shocked by the lights and yelling--until he catches a flash of candy-red hair in the crowd. Discreetly, Natasha waves, smirking into the scarf bundled around her neck. Heartened, he begins again. “Over the past month, I’ve conducted an investigation in collaboration with the NYPD to uncover the perpetrator of these thefts. Through my investigation, I have indeed identified the person who acts under the name of the Black Widow.” He tries to keep speaking, but the crowd explodes into noise, pressing up and almost over the barrier erected in front of the podium. It’s literal minutes before Clint is able to continue. “In the spirit of the holiday season, I have negotiated a return of all property stolen by the Black Widow over the month of December. In exchange, this person’s identity will not be released to the public.”

“The public deserves to know!” one reporter yells.

“How do we know you’re not in league with her?” shouts another.

“You won’t even tell us the gender?” wails someone else. “Are any of the standing theories correct?”

Natasha, Clint sees from the podium, is laughing now, her eyes brightly dancing. Half a smile slips onto Clint’s face as he tells the crowd, “The Black Widow is a New York institution. The more we know about this person, the more the magic and mystery diminish.” He pauses and leans candidly forward for effect. “It’s the holiday season,” he teases. “Don’t we need a little magic and mystery?”

At this, the crowd groans. “No more questions,” Maria says, reclaiming the podium. “To begin the recovery effort, the drums for the Christmas Eve parade have been returned. The NYPD wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a safe holiday season.”

Any attempts to ask further questions are cut off by the rattle of drums. Decked in obnoxiously festive uniforms, the Christmas Eve marching band streams onto the street and begins their showy, slow progress down Broadway, competing in volume with the honks of redirected traffic.

“Ah! The wonderful sounds of the Christmas season,” Natasha says, appearing in a trademark ambush three blocks later to link her arm through Clint’s. “Ready to come help me return all this stuff? I can’t _believe_ they’re making me return everything by midnight. It’s inhumane.”

Clint laughs, steering them away from the parade and down a side street. “I’m pretty sure that’s your problem, not mine.”

Pulling him into an empty doorway, Natasha grins up at him, full of mischief. “I’m not above bribery,” she murmurs, tugging his face down to hers to kiss him long and slow enough that it’s snowing a little by the time she leans away. “Is it working?”

“Hmm,” Clint pretends to muse. “Not sure. You’d better try again.” Natasha shakes her head, but when she kisses him again, it--like everything else she does--is perfect.


End file.
